The opener of the 4th season of Angel brings with it the resolve that has
been hanging in the air ever since "Tomorrow". We see Connor a lot more in this episode
and he finally really is 'a part of the team'. Ironically, this is also the episode he's
literally kicked out of the team by no other than daddy himself.

The episode opens with Angel's hallucinations in the box on the bottom of
the ocean.

The first one set within a fancy dinner, which includes the entire gang;
Connor, Angel, Cordelia, Wesley, Gunn, Fred and Lorne. The table is loaded with all kinds
of rich and delicious food and everyone's eating and laughing. Everyone but Angel. When
Cordelia asks him why he's not eating he says he wants to freeze this moment, when they're
all happy and together (that leads to him and Cordelia drawing closer for a kiss and
Connor whines about needing to watch that part, in other words - just like a real family.
Everyone continues passing plates and dishes among them, but for some reason everyone's
skipping Angel, as if he's invisible. When he finally grabs a plate, it reveals dirty sea
water instead of food. He looks around, and finds himself sitting in water. He looks up
and everything is gone. The table is bare from food and drinks, and there's no one sitting
around it, no one but Connor. As Angel looks at his son, both scared and confused, Connor
smiles devilishly and in a low voice says, "Freeze the moment, dad. It will last forever."
Angel wakes up in the box.

Meanwhile, in the real world, we learn that Connor is now a part of AI.
He's been living in the Hyperion hotel, and together with Fred and Gunn has spent the
summer in search for Angel, with the only difference *he* actually knew where Angel was.
Holtz has used Connor to get his revenge on the vampire, but I don't think even he knew he
did that well. Connor is like a puppy he trained and raised over the years they were
together. He is behaving exactly like Holtz would expect him to, meaning that Holtz's
revenge holds even past his death and Connor successfully maintains it without even
knowing. The way in which Holtz raised him robbed him of any kind of feeling towards his
true father except for burning hatred. There is no regret in him, no remorse, it's clear
that not even once he thought that maybe something wasn't right, maybe what he did was
wrong. He's not only complete with the decision he made in the end of the previous season,
but he hasn't once strayed from that path he chose the entire time.

However (it doesn't have that much to do with the plot of the episode),
in the first 'real life' scene we see Connor, there is a very perceptible change in him.
First of all, he smiles a lot more, his smiles are more open and less hesitant than they
used to be. He is behaving more (it's really weird for me to put this and 'Connor' in the
same sentence) like ... a teenager. The way he just caught the ax in mid air, how he
(over)used the word 'cool' regarding it. I think these past 3 months melt his
Quor-Toth-built character a bit, penetrated through the tough shell and we finally get to
see some of the...boy inside, too. So far, I like it. I just hope they won't take this too
far, Connor has a character, let's preserve it. God knows they twisted enough characters
already *cough* Cordelia *caugh*. Anyway, same goes for him 'testing' Gunn, as Fred
referred to it in a scene later on, he's starting to behave more as a boy his age should
be. And again I say - refreshing, so far so good. *As long* as it stays within reason.

When finally, after 3 months, they have a lead - a vampire teenage girl
named Marissa who may have seen what happened that night, seeing as that's the spot she
usually feeds at, Fred, and Gunn go after her and Connor insists on joining, still
sticking to the image of the concerned son. However, when they get to her lair and a fight
ensues, Connor let's her go 'unintentionally'. He takes off after her, only unlike what
Fred and Gunn think, not to recover the only clue to his father's disappearance but to
finish it off. Even though Marissa swears she didn't see anything, he stakes her, then
injures himself with said stake and claims he had to, because she attacked him. When Gunn
is mad at him for that sloppiness, Connor takes off again.

We learn another new thing about Connor this season opener, aside from
the enormous character development and the fact there is a person underneath the dirt,
lol. Apparently his supernatural abilities grow way beyond what we saw last season. For
instance, what person can jump from buildings and land on his feet? Apparently, he can.
Is it another vampiric aspect? After all, we did have Marissa climbing
walls Spiderman-style while he was bouncing from one building to the other as a blunt
implication of what he, too, can probably do. And to add Gunn's little 'not just a boy'
comment to that... So yeah, that's my theory, I even recall seeing Angel
do that sort of stuff a couple of times. Right now, I just want to see how many more of
his abilities will be revealed to us in the future.

Connor appears in a yet another hallucination of Angel, still inside the
box. In this one, he's found on a roof, where Angel appears behind him, all well as if
nothing happened. Connor turned around and looks at his father, all he says is "Just get
this over with". Remember, Angel dreams it, not Connor. Angel is the one hoping for some
kind of remorse in his son's heart, *not* Connor. The question Connor asks in the dream
does not imply on that Angel plans to take out his revenge on him but that Angel simply
wants him to realize his mistake. On that roof, a bunch of vampires attack them and they
fight, again, side by side, father and son, much like what we remember from "Benediction".
At some point during the fight, Connor even yells Angel a warning "Dad!". The outcome of
this battle is as expected, the two win. Angel looks at Connor again and they smile at
each other…seconds before Angel brutally snaps his son's neck. Angel wakes up in a box,
screaming.

Connor's next appearance in his father's hallucination is when the
vampire is out of the box and in Wesley's boat. This dream contains both reality and
imagination, when the images of Connor (imagination) and Wesley (reality) shift from one
to another. Why the two of them? Simple - both betrayed Angel in the worst possible way. At some point, Angel says, "I should have killed you", but whatever we'd like to think, it's unclear to us whether he means Connor or Wesley because that is the moment the one changes into the other. Angel blames himself for what happened, the typical Angel-thing to do, by saying, "No matter how hard I try, everything I touch turns to ashes". Lorne, who is also in that dream, bluntly blames Connor. Lorne's job in this dream is obvious, just like it is in the series as a whole - he reads people, circumstances, sees what others can, what no one can. He's there to give this dream meaning. Wesley steps into the room and tries to calm Angel down, when he finds him talking to himself (though he's actually talking to Lorne). Lorne, on the other hand, starts singing a lullaby, to which Angel's eyes begin to close and Connor's image appears in front of him. Again, it's unclear if it was awoken by the lullaby (Hush, Little Baby) or something else, but that's where the line "I should have killed you" steps in.

The next time we see Connor is in his room, the very same one Angel had
made for him back in season 3, playing a computer game, when Fred walks in with a
sandwich. She offers it to him, it's just the way he likes it. He says he's not hungry,
but she says he always is. Connor asks if Gunn is still mad at him and Fred says he still
is. The conversation flows over to that she knows how much Connor is hurting, and she
apparently refers to losing his father like that, only then comes the surprise in the form
of "I know you're still hurting, but not nearly as much as you're gonna hurt for what you
did to your father." She knows. Obviously the phone call she and Gunn received before was
from Wesley. Before Connor is quick enough to react, Fred stun-guns him and he's out.

When he wakes up, he's tied up to a chair, open and vulnerable to the
wrath of both Gunn and Fred, who, with the stun-gun still in her hands is not even trying
to let composure have the upper hand. Connor's true face is revealed - "That thing is not
my father". But when Fred asks him, if Angel 'deserved' what he got, how long would it be
before they deserved it, Connor doesn't say anything, and there is almost perceptible
guilt in his eyes, that spark of humanity is finally being shown, even if just a little.

They hear the door opened and run out of the office into the lobby, where
they find Wesley, supporting a blanket-clad and barely conscious Angel. After making sure
they got him, Wesley tells them to give him blood and fresh air and leaves. To Fred's
dismay, he's finished playing his part.

In the meantime, Connor uses the opportunity of being left alone and
escapes. When Gunn and Fred go after him, he attacks them, taking them both out within
seconds, but when he's set to run he faces an unexpected impediment - his father.

Angel maybe looks as though he's clinging to consciousness and barely
able to stand, but he claims otherwise when Connor argues he's too weak to take him. For
whatever reason, Connor believes him. At his father's command, he sits down, as Angel does
the same. Apparently, he wants to talk. Connor looks at him, his eyes are surprisingly
human, even somewhat pained, not emotionless like I would expect but much like the ones he
had in Angel's dream on the roof.

Angel begins with the cynical question of "How was your summer", at which
Connor just keeps staring silently. Angel tells him how was his summer, basically mentions
he saw some fish, went mad with hunger, hallucinated a whole bunch… stuff like that. At
this Connor quietly replies, "You deserved worse." Angel then reveals to him, what he
heard from Wesley, what truly happened with Holtz, how Justine was the one who killed him,
just so Connor would grow to hate him, that it was Holtz's plan all along. Connor still
stares, and at some point, just for a moment, he even turns his eyes away with disbelief
and disillusionment. But even then, he doesn't shed his character by saying "You still
deserved it." But though his gaze is more of less the same throughout the entire
conversation, the tone of his voice indicates he's not as sure anymore…

According to Angel though, what he deserves is open to debate, so now
it's time to see what *he* deserves. Connor springs up from his chare and launches himself
on his father, with surprising strength, Angel shoves him off to the very corner of the
room. Connor doesn't get up, doesn't even try to, he just stares, pained, scared, nothing
of the confidence from earlier is shown in him anymore. Angel says what he deserves
depends on one answer - whether he did something to Cordelia. Connor swears he didn't and
Angel believes him. He tells him to get up and Connor does that. What Angel tells him is
basically that he isn't angry with him for what he did to him, as unbelievable as it was.
He doesn't say it but we understand that. It's not anger, it's disappointment,
disillusionment, pain. There's no room for actual anger. He says that the world is not
what it's supposed to be, that it's harsh and cruel, but there are people like them whose
job is, regardless to who they are, what they did and where they come from, to make it a
better place. He hopes Connor would grow up to be that kind of person, too. After he says
that, Angel adds that he loves him…and banishes him out of his house.

After Connor's gone, his strengths is as though gone with him and he
collapses.

So now that he knows he was merely being used, cheated by the man he knew
as his father into murdering his true father, and now that he is banished from his
father's house permanently… what would Connor do on his own?

Memorable

Angel: What you did to me was unbelievable Connor. But then, I got stuck
in a hell dimension by my girlfriend one time for a 100 years, so a few months under the
ocean...actually gave me perspective, kind of an M.C. Escher perspective. but I did get
time to think, about us, about the world. Nothing in the world is the way it ought to be.
It’s harsh, and cruel. And that’s why there’s us. Champions. It doesn’t matter where we
come from, what we’ve done or suffered, or even if we make a difference. We live as though
the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be. You’re not a part of that yet.
I hope you will be. I love you, Connor. Now get out of my house.